FlashHarry:fox actually fabricates "news" on a regular basis to support its political leanings. its president, roger ailes, has come out and said several times that he sees the network as a conservative counterweight to a perceived liberal bias in the news (wrongly perceived, as studies show). this means his network is NOT balanced. it is heavily weighted to the right. and not just to the right - it is weighted specifically to support the mainstream republican party (even newt gingrich complained about this during the primaries).

JohnCarter:Can I get any type of citation on any of that? If you stance is that the major networks ABC, NBC, and CBS are not liberal leaning, then that is quite a statement.

Since you asked nicely, sure, assuming you're willing to take "less accurate" or "spreads misinformation" as synonymous with "biased."

"...say more government regulation will hurt business and the economy"

What an odd question. Seriously, how can anyone answer this properly? It all depends on their purpose, doesn't it? They can't all be unnecessary. A few better banking regulations and we wouldn't be in the mess we're in at the moment.

I remember when they first started up, and they had to scramble to scrape up any bit of local news footage from around the country just to fill a 24-hour news cycle. As their fortunes increased, they got better at what they were doing, until by the time Gulf War I rolled around, they were pretty much the go-to guys for news. Since then, they've devolved into a platform for celebrity gossip and updates, with a tiny bit of news thrown in as filler.

I initially wondered what will happen when reality really differs from what the news covers over and over again. Say the coming election for example:

News Media: "It's a tight race."ELECTION LAND SLIDE!Viewer: "Hmm....they're not very good at this. Maybe I shouldn't trust them".

Then it occured to me I have far too much faith in the typical television viewer...

Perhaps this will change with the internet generations. The Boomers grew up with television and newspapers you could trust (More so than today anyhow). We, though I say that as someone who stradles the line, grew up with a system where the safest stance is to never give the benefit of the doubt and to be cynical of any information presented by default. Might be harder to misinform the untrusting.

To me the difference between Fox News and MSNBC is that Fox News is actually lying to their viewers. They report things that are actually untrue, under the guise of editorialization or opinion, but it's (intentionally) not clear when they are doing this and not just reporting news.

In addition, Fox News viewers are somewhat dim bulbs compared to national averages, there's no way any of them understand what's actually happening. The executives at Fox News are perfectly okay with this, in fact they've defended their right to legally continue doing this.

That's the difference, MSNBC is absolutley biased, but I don't believe that they are intentionally trying to mislead viewers or are outright lying about what's actually going on.

skodabunny:"...say more government regulation will hurt business and the economy"

What an odd question. Seriously, how can anyone answer this properly? It all depends on their purpose, doesn't it? They can't all be unnecessary. A few better banking regulations and we wouldn't be in the mess we're in at the moment.

I remember taking a sample CLEP (I think it was CLEP) test on American Government. One of the questions was "what has been the primary cause of deficit increase in the United States budget?"

The correct answer, of course, is "we spend more than we take in."

The options were "Democratic policies", "Republican policies", "failure to cut social programs" and "citizens expectations of services".

They all perpetuate the culture of anti-intellectualism to some degree. Obviously, Fox is the fountain of imbecility, but the others are hardly better. When it comes to news, I'd rather listen to the radio or read an article or two than let some talking head tell me what some other talking head made up.

Jerkwater:What this country needs is some sort of non-profit, publicly-funded broadcast entity, financially supported by the consumers of the news. An entity that isn't beholden to ratings, sponsorship, etc.

Fox is straight up GOP propaganda, they're not just right wing they're GOP.

MSNBC has liberal commentators at night but most of the day they function much like CNN

CNN is the E! channel with some light news served up by morans who couldn't break it down for you if they had a hammer.

Fox is too funny, they're more bold about their bias than ever, and you can chat with any true fox viewer for just a few minutes and see why.

Much like a cult fox slowly convinced their viewers that what they say is right and anyone questioning their words is only doing so to trick you/lie to you...just like fox warned you they would.decades from now Fox will either be something incredulous teens read about in class or a sprawling gated compound from which no one ever returns.

ciberido:Jerkwater: What this country needs is some sort of non-profit, publicly-funded broadcast entity, financially supported by the consumers of the news. An entity that isn't beholden to ratings, sponsorship, etc.

So .... like the British Broadcasting Corporation?

Auntie is generally pretty awesome. Her news manages to piss off people on both the left and the right who cry about unfavourable bias over the same reports. That suggests to me they pretty much get it right.

The Sun is on the campus of the University of Maine in Presque Isle (French for "almost an island", i.e., a peninsula). The partisanship of Fox News is somewhere beyond Pluto (Houlton, ME). I'm guessing it is offshore near Mount Desert Island, and its famous old-timey resort town, Bar Harbor.

For Canadians, the distance is about the same as Woodstock, NB, to Perth Andover, NB, with McCain Land in between (Fredericton in the other direction, might be easier to visualize). Perth Andover is where the winner of the Touch Bellini Contest on Kids in the Hall got to touch Belleni (wearing a hotel room towel). IIRC, the winner was a Hickey. Hickey is a common name in the area. Maybe he was a Hicks.

In the history of the world, about the only events that have ever happened in or near Perth-Andover, New Brunswick, was the Touch Bellini Contest and the Aroostook War. Neither of them were our finest hour as a species. But more people knew about the Touch Bellini Contest.

I'm sorry we lost Aroostook County to the State of ME. All those potato fields could have been ours, and also a much shorter route to Upper Canada, with fewer icy hills.

The weather in Presque Isle, Maine is the same as the weather in McCain Land, except one hour earlier. The McCains have their private executive airport in New Brunswick and their control tower in the USA. The multi-billion dollar food giant and this international airport are Florenceville, NB's claim to fame (not bad for a village of 700 or so).

But I digress.

Suffice to say that Fox News is further out there than the Way Outs on the Inter-Galactic Iditerod Dog Sled Race. CNN and the other corporate news sources don't seem all that much less crazier than batshiat sorbet.

I have no idea what you are talking about, but I'd like an introduction to your doctor / drug dealer.

Arkanaut:Lord Dimwit: Arkanaut: Lord Dimwit: Arkanaut: JohnCarter: Fox does lean right and everyone agrees that is what it is. The funny part is that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN all lean left and clearly deny it.

I don't know, every time I watch ABC Nightly News with Diane Sawyer, I want to wave American flags, yell out the Pledge of Allegiance, and maybe punch a Chinaman.

"Chinaman" is not the preferred nomenclature. "Asian-American" please.

It's cool, I'm a chink too.

/I'm "owning" the word

You, sir, are obviously not a golfer.

Apparently not. I do promise, however, to never pee either in your coke or on your rug.

Lord Dimwit:Arkanaut: Lord Dimwit: Arkanaut: Lord Dimwit: Arkanaut: JohnCarter: Fox does lean right and everyone agrees that is what it is. The funny part is that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN all lean left and clearly deny it.

I don't know, every time I watch ABC Nightly News with Diane Sawyer, I want to wave American flags, yell out the Pledge of Allegiance, and maybe punch a Chinaman.

"Chinaman" is not the preferred nomenclature. "Asian-American" please.

It's cool, I'm a chink too.

/I'm "owning" the word

You, sir, are obviously not a golfer.

Apparently not. I do promise, however, to never pee either in your coke or on your rug.

Watch The Big Lebowski. Your life will be better for it. :)

Then he might know where his peeing on the rug reference came from. ;)

From TFA: "If you blame it on anything, I'll blame it on Fox News and CNN," he said. "All those folks showing their side of the story and not the whole picture. They've got the country split in two."

Horseshiat. Blame the people on both the left and the right that consume this product thinking it has anything to do with 'news'. It doesn't. Cable news exists for one reason: to get you to sit through commercials. It's nothing more than reality TV with slightly better production values & more flags.

Want to reduce the influence money has on politics? Stop watching/listening to political ads.

/voted Nixon & Reagan//too young to vote Goldwater, or probably would have

~ wouldn't vote Rep now to save my soul. Wait, That's an oxymoron...if I voted republican, I wouldn't possess a soul, so if I voted repub to save my soul, do I get a soul, or lose a turn and have to spin again and Palin becomes president?

NeoCortex42:It's almost impossible to report news without including some bias. Otherwise it would just be a dry list of facts. That being said, my impression of the networks:Fox: An official mouthpiece for the GOPMSNBC: A news channel that happens to have liberal opinionsCNN: A complete joke that's turning into noting but entertainment news.

unexplained bacon:Fox is straight up GOP propaganda, they're not just right wing they're GOP.

MSNBC has liberal commentators at night but most of the day they function much like CNN

CNN is the E! channel with some light news served up by morans who couldn't break it down for you if they had a hammer.

Fox is too funny, they're more bold about their bias than ever, and you can chat with any true fox viewer for just a few minutes and see why.

Much like a cult fox slowly convinced their viewers that what they say is right and anyone questioning their words is only doing so to trick you/lie to you...just like fox warned you they would.decades from now Fox will either be something incredulous teens read about in class or a sprawling gated compound from which no one ever returns.

MSNBC also has conservative commentators, but every time I see that brought up it's ignored or rationalized away as being unimportant.

Dark Overlord:The Cox newspapers and Atlanta's local news 'casts are horribly tilted left to where their readership/viewership have been falling also.

As he says without a hint of irony in the fact that WSB radio is also owned by Cox (You know...the same folks who own WSB-TV and the AJC). And coincidentally WSB's listenership has been going down as well so right-wing tilted media in Atlanta is falling as well.